In eight years Palestinians have seen the bald eagle of enlightened US power degenerate into a phoney, biased, cynical lame duck

It is a well-deserved irony for George Bush that his first presidential visit to Israel coincided this week with the storm of excitement produced by the unexpected outcome of the two New Hampshire primaries. Nothing could better highlight the irrelevance of the final year of the Bush presidency.

The moment at which an incumbent becomes a lame duck fluctuates in every US administration, depending on circumstances. The day on which the first votes are cast is traditionally the symbolic date, even though the race has been under way in the media for months. This year’s riveting contests in New Hampshire certainly proved that true, overshadowing whatever interest there was in Bush’s plans for influencing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Even before the president left Washington, expectations for his visit were low. His much-trumpeted meeting of Middle Eastern leaders in Annapolis in November produced a predictably tinny follow-up. Little happened in the subsequent six weeks, and it was only courtesy to Bush that impelled Ehud Olmert and Mahmoud Abbas to meet again in advance of the president’s touchdown in Tel Aviv on Wednesday and produce the blandest pretence of progress. According to Olmert’s spokesman, they agreed to “authorise their negotiating teams to conduct direct and ongoing negotiations on all the core issues”. Isn’t this tautological statement merely a repeat of what they had already launched in Annapolis?

Bush’s engagement in the world’s most intractable dispute is late, piecemeal and phoney. Above all, it is one-sided. As Ghassan Khatib, a former Palestinian minister, remarked this week: “Palestinians agree that in the history of the United States, Bush is more biased toward Israel than any other American president.” In any conflict, responsibility for making the largest concessions always rests on the stronger party, especially when most of the wrong is on its side. But, despite his rhetoric yesterday, Bush has not used Washington’s enormous leverage over Israel to end the occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

He has not even applied pressure for an end to the expansion of Israeli settlements or the dismantling of the spider’s web of roadblocks that make normal life for Palestinians impossible. A US plan for benchmarks by which to judge Israeli progress was quickly abandoned last spring at the first whiff of concern by Olmert’s government. Occasional state department pronouncements disapproving of settlement expansion are not followed by measures to reflect US anger when – as happened in Jerusalem again on Wednesday – Olmert makes it clear he will continue the illegal construction of Israeli homes.

Any talk of dealing with “core issues” is meaningless without measures to reduce the daily hardships of Palestinians and end the kidnapping of hundreds of Palestinian leaders. About 40 Palestinian MPs who were seized after Hamas’s election victory two years ago remain in Israeli prisons, uncharged and seemingly forgotten by Bush and other western governments. US and European policies towards Hamas remain hopelessly unjust and counterproductive.

In the first phase of the so-called roadmap that Bush boasts of having revived, Palestinians are supposed to build the institutions of a responsible state. Yet Israel and the US continue to do all they can to undermine this laudable goal by blatantly taking sides in the rivalry between Fatah and Hamas. Bush’s comment yesterday in Ramallah about the situation in Gaza was one of history’s most extraordinary examples of tunnel vision. “Hamas has delivered nothing but misery for Palestinians,” he declared. Had he said, “My reaction and that of my Israeli and European Union colleagues to the mandate given Hamas by Palestinian voters has delivered nothing but misery for Palestinians”, he would have been closer to the truth.

The human catastrophe deliberately inflicted on Gaza by western policies over the past two years is one of the great crimes of this century so far. It is especially unjustified since Hamas had been observing a truce in its attacks on Israelis for several months prior to winning the “free, fair and open elections” that the roadmap asked for. Hamas was, and continues to be, punished not for its occasional use of violence but simply for being popular. And, as often happens with sanctions, it is not the leaders who suffer, but the whole civilian population of the territory – deprived of medicine, adequate food, public services and jobs. Rather than pursuing the chimera of a final settlement that would mean nothing without Hamas’s endorsement, western policy should focus on more manageable humanitarian and political goals: lifting the boycott of Hamas, promoting Palestinian unity, and forcing Israel to end its brutal siege of Gaza.

Bush is not the first US president to take an interest in the Middle East in the last year of an eight-year period of office. Bill Clinton also applied his mind to it in the dying months of his second term. Yet his performance was very different: Clinton had endorsed the Oslo process early in his first term, and showed considerable energy in pushing it forward and supporting the new Palestinian Authority.

Later, in spite of being a lame duck by the year 2000, he tried hard to get agreement between Arafat and Barak at Camp David, on a final settlement that was not loaded overwhelmingly in Israel’s favour. It was a model of how American presidents can act more firmly when released from the pressures of seeking election. It only needs an effort of will for a lame duck to become the bald eagle of enlightened US power.

In contrast, Bush’s current visit to the region is nothing more than a display of partisan cynicism, coupled with the hope that if some sort of interim deal is signed this year between Olmert and Abbas, it would erase Washington’s failures in Iraq.

Where does that leave Palestinians as the gathering wave of US primaries prepares to reveal the last two candidates for the Bush succession? Will they have to wait as long as 2016 before President Clinton or President Obama is free enough to confront Israeli intransigence and to insist on concessions? Neither candidate has yet given any sign of breaking away from traditional pro-Israeli views of the problem, so once again Palestinians may have to wait for the eighth-year miracle. Windows of opportunity open so rarely, yet the need for early action has never been more urgent.

j.steele@guardian.co.uk

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Iran’s release of the video taken on the morning of Sunday January 6th in the Strait of Hormuz, clearly debunks Pentagon’s hype of depicting a routine patrolling operation by the Iranian Navy as an act of unfathomable aggression against the United States.Timing of this so called ‘provocation’ incident in the Persian Gulf just before Mr. Bush’s trip to the region was also very convenient as he went on reminding the world and all the client Arab states in the region during a press conference in Israel yesterday that they must fear this menacing “threat to the world peace” and prepare for a joint U.S./Israeli action to deal with Iran.

Some have rightfully compared it with another eerily similar ‘incident’ in the Gulf of Tonkin on August 2, 1964 when another government lie started a war leading to over 50,000 American deaths and millions of Vietnamese casualties.

But several gigantic errors and miscalculations severely undercut this latest concoction. First, this is not 1964 and thanks to internet people no longer have to rely on radio, television, and newspapers version of the events which often report such official claims as absolute truths.

Second, Iranians unlike their American counterparts do remember and have learned quiet a bit from their history with the United States especially in the aftermath of the 1953 CIA coup which put an end to their budding democratic government.

The amateurish video audio hodgepodge released by DoD to bolster U.S. claims has instead raised more questions and exposed the U.S.’s hostile intent rather than portraying it as victim of the Iranian mischief. According to a report published in the New York Times, unnamed Pentagon officials are saying that the threatening voice heard in the audio clip which was recorded separately from the video images and merged together later by the Navy, “is not traceable to the Iranian military”.

That voice spoken in an unfamiliar accent was the dead giveaway for many Iranians including this writer that the video was a hoax. To the contrary, the Iranian version appears realistic with audio and video perfectly synchronized in what appears to have been shot with an ordinary camcorder most of us are familiar with. The Navy men speak in a very familiar accent while going about their business of patrolling and identifying ships sailing in or near Iranian territorial waters.

Here is the text of the conversation that took place between the two patrolmen on the Iranian Navy speed boat as translated from Persian:

0:07 #1: “Announce its position”

0:30 (Patrolman #2 calls the other by name with a reference to need for safety procedures)

0:45 #1: “Slowly get a little closer… can’t make out the ship number”

0:50 #2: “Did you get it?”

0:51 #1: “Yeah, it is not clear”

0:56 #1: “Wait just a moment”

0:57 #2: “It is better now”

1:16 #1: “Is it 73?” (Boat proceeds to pull a little closer)

1:32 #1: “I hear something being announced from its loudspeakers, what is it saying?”

1:50 #1: “I think they’re talking to us”

2:35 #2: “Channel?” (Getting ready to establish radio communication)

2:36 #1: “16”

2:37 #2: “What was the ship number?”

2:38 #1: “73”

2:40 (Then patrolman #2 starts the radio communication in English)

Wouldn’t the U.S. Coast Guard be doing exactly the same if a Russian or Chinese war ship sailed into the Gulf of Mexico just off the Florida coastline?

At the very end of this 5 minute video one of the Iranian patrolmen is heard reciting the ship’s position: “26 and 30 minutes north and 0 and 56 minutes east” and the American ships are shown sailing away west without incident.

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TrueMajority.org/DontBombIran is a project to support activists speaking out against starting another MidEast war. The mobile vehicle being built in this video will tour “No Iran War” rallies around the country, starting soon! Go to http://truemajority.org/DontBombIran to find out where.

Once again, America is faced with questions about the integrity of machine-counted ballots and about the rights of Americans to decide for themselves who they should be allowed to vote for in this crucial Presidential election.

In New Hampshire, it’s a question of whether votes were counted or manipulated. In Nevada, it’s a question of whether the GE-owned NBC television network should have the power to decide who your choices should be for President.

The vote counts in New Hampshire are suspicious. And, today’s decision by NBC to exclude Dennis from next week’s Presidential debate – even though he met the criteria – is outrageous. And, we need your help to deal with both of these matters.

Because of the unexplained disparities between hand-counted and machine-counted ballots in New Hampshire, Dennis has asked for a recount. “I am not making this request in the expectation that a recount will significantly affect the number of votes that were cast on my behalf,” Dennis said in his letter to the Secretary of State of New Hampshire. But, he cited “serious and credible reports, allegations and rumors” that question the integrity of the machine-controlled process.

Likewise, NBC and MSNBC have made a corporate decision to exclude the one and only voice who represents you and those things that the Democratic Party should stand for. If you are as outraged as we are, feel free to call:

Less than 44 hours after NBC sent a congratulatory note and an invitation to Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich to participate in the Jan. 15 Democratic Presidential debate in Las Vegas, the network notified the campaign this morning it was changing it announced criteria, rescinding its invitation, and excluding Kucinich from the debate.

NBC Political Director Chuck Todd notified the Kucinich campaign this morning that, although Kucinich had met the qualification criteria publicly announced on December 28, the network was “re-doing” the criteria, excluding Kucinich, and planning to invite only Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama and former senator John Edwards.

The criteria announced last month included a fourth-place or better showing in a national poll. The USA/Gallup poll earlier this month showed Kucinich in fourth place among the Democratic contenders.

In an email to the Kucinich campaign at 2:35 p.m. on Wednesday, January 9, Democratic Party debates consultant Jenny Backus wrote:

“Congratulations on another hard-fought contest. Now that New Hampshire is over, we are on to Nevada and our Presidential Debate on Tuesday January 15. This letter serves as an official invitation for your candidate to participate in the Nevada Presidential Debate at Cashman Theatre in downtown Las Vegas. You have met the criteria set by NBC and the Debate.”

Todd notified the Kucinich campaign this morning that the network had decided to change the criteria and limit participation in the debate to only three candidates.

Kucinich is the only remaining Democratic Presidential candidate who: voted against the original Iraq War authorization in 2002 and every war-funding measure since; voted against the so-called Patriot Act; advocates a national, not-for-profit health system that covers all Americans; has called for the repeal of NAFTA and withdrawal from the WTO; and proposes a national back-to-work program (Works Green Administration) patterned after the Depression-era Works Progress Administration (WPA).

The Kucinich campaign, which filed an emergency complaint with the Federal Communications Commission last week because of ABC’s decision to exclude the candidate from a nationally televised debate, is considering legal action to address “the blatant disregard of the public interest in silencing public debate that dissents with the views of NBC, its parent company, GE, and all of the military contractors and their candidate-funding corporate interests. Corporate control of the media is one issue. Corporate media control of the information that is allowed to reach American citizens is much more dangerous, much more sinister, and much more un-American.”

“When ‘big media’ exert their unbridled control over what Americans can see, hear, and read, then the Constitutional power and right of the citizens to vote is being vetoed by multi-billion corporations that want the votes to go their way,” the Kucinich campaign said.

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“Its not who votes that counts. Its who counts the votes.” Joseph Stalin

Something doesn’t ring true about Hillary’s “upset” victory in the New Hampshire primary. It just doesn’t pass the smell test. All the exit polls showed Clinton trailing Obama by significant margins. In fact, in the Gallup Poll taken just days before the election, “Crocodile tears” Hillary was down by a whopping 13 points. Her “turnaround” was not only unexpected, but downright shocking. The results for the rest of the candidates–excluding Clinton and Obama—were all within the margin of error. Clinton was the only anomaly. Surprise, surprise.

If this election had been conducted in any other country in the world, the Bush administration would have immediately dispatched an independent team of election observers and demanded a recount. But not in the good old USA, where stealing elections is replacing baseball as the national pastime. Would it surprise you to know that (according to Black Box Voting) the Marketing and Sales Director of the company that tallies the votes (LHS) “was arrested, indicted, and pleaded guilty to “sale / CND” and sentenced to 12 months in the Rockingham County Correctional facility, and fined $2000.” That would be LHS Sales Director Mr. Ken Hajjar. Here’s an excerpt from Bev Harris’s Black Box Voting web site:

“The Diebold ballot printing plant at the time we got records on the overages (that is, more ballots than needed for election; MW) was being run by a convicted felon who had spent four years in prison on a narcotics trafficking charge. No, not New Hampshire’s voting machine programming exec Ken Hajjar, who cut a plea deal in 1990 for his role in cocaine distribution. This was another convicted felon, John Elder, who ran the Diebold ballot printing plant; he’s now an elections consultant.” ( Recount – Is Dennis Kucinich walking into a trap? by Bev Harris)

The you-tube video also shows LHS’s owner defending the dubious record of his optical scanning hardware in court. The reader can decide for himself whether we’re dealing with a man of impeccable integrity or another flannel-mouth opportunist who has enriched himself at the expense of our basic democratic institutions.

Bradblog’s Dori Smith reports that Sales Director “Hajjar totes memory cards around in the trunk of his car and defends the practice of swapping out memory cards during the middle of elections.” (Polls Wildly Different Than Results) Nice touch, eh?

“So what’s all the fuss? I’ll just slip this little card in the slot and—Lookee here—Hillary’s a winner; just like I figured.”

Activist Nancy Tobi provides a great summary of the back-room machinations in her article “Democracy for New Hampshire” which came out the day after the primary:

“81% of New Hampshire ballots are counted in secret by a private corporation named Diebold Election Systems (now known as “Premier”). The elections run on these machines are programmed by one company, LHS Associates, based in Methuen, MA. We know nothing about the people programming these machines, and we know even less about LHS Associates. We know even less about the secret vote counting software used to tabulate 81% of our ballots. People like to say “but we use paper ballots! They can always be counted by hand!”

“But they’re not. They’re counted by Diebold. Only a candidate can request a hand recount, and most never do so. And a rigged election can easily become a rigged recount, as we learned in Ohio 2004, where two election officials were convicted of rigging their recount. (Is it just a funny coincidence that Diebold spokesman is named Mr. Riggall?)

We need to get the count right on election night. Right now, nobody in New Hampshire, except the programmers at LHS Associates and Diebold Election Systems, knows if we are getting it right or wrong.”

Good job, Nancy.

Does it seem to you, dear reader, that we could save the taxpayer a lot of money and trouble by just returning to the “old system” of letting 9 judges on the Supreme Court chose our leaders? Why do we continue with this pointless sham?

Look, our elections are being run by corporations that have an obvious stake in the outcome. There’s a heap of money involved and nothing is left to chance. The media’s job is to make us feel like we have a choice. We don’t.

The only reason the farce continues is because the ruling elite believe that perception management is the cheapest way to control the bewildered herd. And, of course, they’re right. Pulling a lever every 4 years is a type of political empowerment. It makes us feel like we’re part of the decision-making process, which makes it easier to accept the “shittier and shittier paying jobs”, the curtailed civil liberties and the endless wars. (Thanks George Carlin)

This year we can choose from a slate of 8 candidates; all of whom are members of the secretive Council on Foreign Relations; and all of whom are wholly committed to the off-shoring of businesses, the outsourcing of jobs, the expansion of police-state powers, and the obscene enlargement the already over-bloated War Machine. The only exceptions are Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich who are treated like pariahs by the establishment media.

As for Hillary; she won nothing. The results are completely bogus. Her weepy performance before the balloting was orchestrated to create a credible narrative to explain the fraudulent shifting of votes away from Obama. It was exactly the same trick that Karl Rove played in 2004, when he had the entire corporate media standing behind his cockamamie story that 3 or 4 million fundamentalists—who had never voted before in a general election—suddenly poured down from the mountains to cast their ballot for their champion, George Bush. This absurd narrative was spouted from every media-soapbox in the nation until it was generally accepted as fact. The media then proceeded to quash any investigation of the massive voter fraud which took place across the country (particularly in Ohio) while discrediting critics as conspiracy theorists.

“Conspiracy theorists?”

Is it a conspiracy to think that the same guys who abduct foreign nationals off the streets of cities around the world and take them to black sites—where their eyes are gouged out and their finger nails ripped off—would get squeamish over something as trivial as ballot stuffing?

Get real!

Clinton’s tearful antics were right out of Karl Rove’s “Dirty Tricks Playbook”. Chapter one: Invent a believable storyline, run it through the Propaganda Ministry (the media) and stick with it no matter how ridiculous it sounds.

I carry no brief for Obama or Clinton and I don’t see any substantial difference between either of them. They are both water carriers for their far-right constituents. It is the system that’s important. And the system is broken.

The primary was stolen. End of story. Now, it’s our move.

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Note to readers, opednews editor DID get through to make sure Kucinich is aware of this article and issue.

The election integrity community is abuzz with news that candidate Dennis Kucinich will ask for a recount in New Hampshire, and Ron Paul fans have been pushing him to recount as well. Careful, this action is laced with subtle perils.

NEW HAMPSHIRE ELECTION INTEGRITY ADVOCATE NANCY TOBI IS CORRECT:

“We have no control over the ballot chain of custody and we have learned the pain from the 2004 Nader recount, in which only 11 districts were counted, chosen by a highly questionable person, and then nothing showed up. Now all we hear is how the Nader recount validated the machines.”

As Tobi says, “A candidate asking for a recount may well be a tool used to ‘prove’ everything was okay and then that candidate will be further discredited.”

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security on Friday plans to take the next step in getting its controversial Real ID plan off the ground, despite opposition from numerous states and privacy groups.

At a midday press conference in Washington, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff is scheduled to take the wraps off final regulations for the electronic identification card mandate and to make another pitch for the scheme’s perceived importance in keeping Americans safe from terrorist threats.

“We haven’t had an event of this serious nature recently,” Whitman said, referring to encounters between U.S. Navy vessels and Iranian warships. (Bloomberg, January 7, 2008)

At one point the U.S. ships received a threatening radio call from the Iranians, “to the effect that they were closing (on) our ships and that the ships would explode — the U.S. ships would explode,” Cosgriff said. The Associated Press Pentagon Says Ships Harassed by Iran)

The Pentagon said the incident was serious. It described the Iranian actions as “careless, reckless and potentially hostile” and said Tehran should provide an explanation. (Arab Times, 7 January 2008)

Media Disinformation

Coinciding with Bush’s Middle East trip, the intent of the Pentagon’s propaganda ploy is to present Iran as the aggressor.

The patrol activities of these boats are presented as “a serious threat” and an act of “provocation”. The London Times goes even further: in its January 7 morning headlines the Iranian speed boats, barely 30 feet long, were apparently preparing “a suicide attack” against US war ships equipped with advanced state of art weaponary:

The second vessel threatened by the Iranian suicide speedboats is a Ticonderoga-class guided missile cruiser USS Port Royal CG73 which carries a sophisticated weapons arsenal including Tomahawk and Harpoon missiles, a Phalanx CIWS 2, not to mention Sikorsky SH-60 and Seahawk LAMPS III helicopters. Again the threatening speedboats would be destroyed almost instantly.

“Iranian speedboats harassed US warships and threatened to blow them up in a radio communication.” A naval “suicide attack” in international waters says the Times of London.

But in fact with the exception of alleged verbal abuse on the part of the Iranian coastguard, which Tehran denies in a carefully worded statement, nothing happened other than a routine patrol operation.

Just Who is Threatening Whom?

The incident must be put in a historical perspective.

Realities are turned upside down. Known and documented since 2003, the Pentagon has drawn up detailed and precise plans for U.S. sponsored attacks on both Iran and Syria. Israel and NATO are partners in this military adventure.

Moreover, barely mentioned by the Western media, there has since Summer 2006, been a massive concentration of US Naval power in the Persian Gulf and the Arabian Sea, which are part of those war preparations. Since 2006, US war ships with advanced weapons systems have been stationed almost continuously within proximity of Iranian territorial waters.

Large scale US war games have been conducted.

Numerous acts of provocation directed against Iran have been undertaken.

The Pentagon’s war plans continue to be based on the justification that Iran is in defiance of the “international community” and is actively involved in developing nuclear weapons.

In a bitter irony, the first phase of these war plans under TIRANNT was formulated at a time when US intelligence confirmed that Iran had abandoned its nuclear weapons program.

The existence of this Fall 2003 intelligence was made available in the recently released 2007 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE):

“We judge that in the fall of 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program… We continue to assess with moderate-to-high confidence that Iran does not currently have a nuclear weapon.“ (See Iran: Nuclear Intentions and Capabilities, NIE 2007. http://www.dni.gov/press_releases/20071203_release.pdf)

This classified 2003 intelligence, declassified four years later in the 2007 was in all likelihood available to the White House and Pentagon in Fall 2003, which suggests that the main justification for US and allied war preparations is based on a big lie. The 2007 NIE report states that Iran abandoned its nuclear weapons program. There is no concrete evidence to the effect that Iran had a nuclear program.

US Naval Buildup in the Persian Gulf

Let us return to the speedboat incident and examine how realties can be twisted by the Western media. .

There is currently a massive concentration of naval power in the Persian Gulf and the Arabian Sea.

In addition to the three war ships which apparently had been harassed by Iran speedboats, the entire US Fifth Fleet is stationed within proximity of the Strait of Hormuz and the Iranian coastline. The Fifth Fleet is under U.S. Naval Forces Central Command stationed in the Bahrain off the Strait of Hormuz Fleet.

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First the videos with bin Laden ones Exhibit A. He always seems to pop up strategically at well-timed moments, almost like we planned it that way. Evidence points that way.

Consider the one on Friday (September 7) before the sixth 9/11 anniversary in 2007. Digital image forensics expert, Neal Krawetz of Hactor Factor, said it was full of low quality visual and audio splices, a likely fake. Striking also was bin Laden’s beard that was gray in recent images. In this video, it’s black. In addition, the footage has him dressed in a white hat and shirt and yellow sweater, precisely his same attire on an October 29, 2004 video. In addition, the background, lighting, desk and camera angle are the same.

Krawetz noted that “if you overlay the 2007 and 2004 videos, bin Laden’s face is the same (unaged). Only his beard is darker, and the picture contrast was adjusted. Most important are the edits showing obvious splices, at least six video ones in all. Even more audio ones were used that appear to be words and phrases spliced together making Krawetz suspect a vocal imitator was used.

Now the latest “incident” and video making headlines. They involve a supposed Persian Gulf confrontation between Iranian and US vessels in open waters. A subsequent Pentagon video shows small Iranian boats v. US warships in the Strait of Hormuz earlier this week. The Pentagon and major media reported a fleet of high-speed small craft charged at and threatened to blow up a three-ship convoy of US warships. George Bush called it a “dangerous” provocation and warned of “serious consequences” if there are further incidents.

Iran’s response came swiftly and called the Pentagon video and audio “fabricated.” The incident was routine and something “normal that takes place every now and then for each party” to identify the other….Iran Navy units always put questions to passing vessels and warships at the Strait of Hormuz and they need to identify themselves. This is in accordance with the normal procedures.” The Tehran spokesman said its Navy units “asked (the US ships) to identify themselves. They responded accordingly and continued on their (non-aggressive) path.”

On January 9 (according to Agence France-Presse – AFP), Iran’s Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) accused Washington of fabricating footage of the incident it described as routine and non-confrontational. The country’s state-run Al-Alam Arabic language international channel and English language Press-TV both quoted an IRGC spokesman with similar comments. This hardly needs elaborating. It’s unimaginable that lightly armed small craft would challenge heavily armed warships from any nation, let alone likely nuclear-armed ones flying US flags. The very notion borders on the absurd. Imagining where this may lead, however, recall the August, 1964 Gulf of Tonkin incident. No further comment needed.

Now the January, 2008 election: dateline New Hampshire. Zogby International has a well-deserved reputation for accuracy. It’s January 5 – 7 pre-election poll numbers showed Obama at 42% v. Clinton’s 29% – an impossible gap to close in a few days or even weeks. Yet magically it happened. Clinton miraculously snatched victory from certain defeat with 39% of the vote to Obama’s 36% with the loser saying no more than “I am still fired up and ready to go.” Where to he should ask after this type reversal with obvious grim signs for his hopes.

Consider final New Hampshire vote tallies for all candidates compared to Zogby’s January 5 – 7 pre-election poll numbers. For Republican and Democrat candidates alike, they were dead-on right with one glaring exception. Something to ponder and question.

On the Republican side, something fishy happened as well to its one outlier – Ron Paul. The candidate’s “war room” hand count showed he got 15% of the vote, but official counting gave him 8% and 9% in total when electronically tabulated votes were included. His web site said he scored 10% or better in every township and listed percentages for them all. They ranged from 34% to 10.25%. If these numbers are accurate, Paul got a minimum of 10% of New Hampshire’s vote for a third place finish.

Another disturbing report also emerged. The town of Sutton admitted it voided all Paul votes. He got 31, but none made the official tally. It was blamed on “human error” that might account for a slight variance but highly unlikely to erase his entire total. Yet it did and raises strong suspicions of fraud. Once this information got out, other districts where Paul scored zero changed their final count adding votes for him never counted. Something clearly is rotten in New Hampshire. It doesn’t say much for the process ahead, or past ones either for that matter.

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Operation: #OneMoreVote

The FCC voted to repeal net neutrality, letting internet providers like Verizon and Comcast impose new fees, throttle bandwidth, and censor online content. But we can stop them by using the Congressional Review Act (CRA). We need one more vote to win in the Senate, and we’re launching an Internet-wide push to get it.

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The Golden Rule

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Amendment I

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